Free Republic

<p>Google-owned YouTube’s plan to remove the “dislike” button from videos, the easiest and bluntest way for users to express their disapproval with the content of a video, should not be viewed in isolation. It’s part of a long-running trend of elites seeking to prohibit ordinary people from speaking back to them.</p>

Climate czar John Kerry was caught not wearing his mask while reading a book on an American Airlines flight in lieu of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mandate requiring masks on flights. The photo, which was first posted by conservative outlet the Tennessee Star, shows the former secretary of state wearing his mask hanging off one ear as he reads a book in first class. Fox News confirmed the photo's authenticity with the passenger, who wished to remain anonymous.

One of the fascinating oddities of the American revolution was the way many mutually hostile groups of elites in America decided, in a brief period, to join forces in what seemed like a fool’s errand—a revolution against the imperial elite of Great Britain. Among their goals, these different and incompatible elites of New England, New York, Virginia, the Carolinas and, eventually, Pennsylvania all wanted to reclaim and/or protect their long-established liberties, immunities, and rights of self-rule. What these different colonial elites had in common was a collective desire to fight a more distant elite that sought to control them with...

While David French and those like him are free to adopt every line the CDC manifests, there is room for well-informed and well-meaning Christians to disagree about COVID vaccinations. It’s surprising how unsurprising it is when white evangelical David French takes an opportunity to swing at other white evangelicals, as he did once again over the weekend with an article asking why “so many white Evangelicals [are] reluctant to consider the health of their community.”The article is about vaccines, of course, but it’s mostly about how Christians who are even hesitant to receive one have a “spiritual problem.” Before anyone...

We Americans sure do love us some experts. Utterly fixated on credentials, we believe degrees and titles confer, if not magical powers, then at least superior wisdom and intellectual capacity. We seem to forget that a credential is no guarantee of competence, much less understanding, as any business owner who has just hired a recent college graduate knows very well. We also, to our peril, ignore the fact that the experts are frequently wrong. A greater problem, though, is that we all too often listen to the wrong experts. Yes, on balance, experts do know more about one specific subject...

When you consider what has happened in the United States in the last nine months, incredibly, it doesn't even seem like our own nation anymore. People rioting in the streets during the summer are described by the lamestream media as "peaceful protesters." District Attorneys let hardened criminals out of jail. Grammar schools indoctrinate our children, teaching them to hate America. The Lunatics are Running the AsylumGovernors mandate lockdowns of their citizens while flagrantly breaking their own rules. A presidential administration, run by who knows who, is undermining the "1776 Project" -- which was designed to offer a balanced perspective on...

The young founders of American Moment are committed to making vital changes in the conservative movement and injecting new energy into our coalition. We at The American Mind agree this must be done—and fast. Unfortunately, National Review, once a crucible for the best conservative thought, has become so defensive of its own position that it attacks any organization (including ours) which threatens to overturn the failed Republican leadership class. We are glad to host American Moment’s response to National Review’s ill-informed hit piece against them. The old order that has dominated the Right for at least the last three decades...

Politicians have too much power over our lives. Many used the pandemic as another excuse to take more. Early on, politicians declared that they would decide who was "essential." Everyone else was told to stay home. Much of the economy stopped. Millions were laid off. Then politicians relaxed the rules for industries that they deemed "essential." "You can't just call somebody essential without implicitly suggesting that half the workforce is not essential," points out Mike Rowe, host of the surprise hit TV series, "Dirty Jobs." That's a big problem, says Rowe, because people find purpose in work. Now the Biden...

The World Economic Forum, founded by Klaus Schwab in 1970, hosts a yearly January gathering of global corporate and political elites in Davos, Switzerland. Annually, it draws hundreds of private jets, as attendees gather to assure the rest of us that we must tighten our belts and sacrifice our standard of living in order to reduce carbon emissions. It calls itself: …the foremost creative force for engaging the world's top leaders in collaborative activities to shape the global, regional and industry agendas at the beginning of each year. That sounds an awful lot like powerful people conspiring with each other...

What people want from politicians is not to put on the same tired show they have been watching for years. They want them to get things done.The extreme disconnect between the political class and the people they ostensibly serve is by now extremely clear. It was the primary factor behind Donald Trump’s ascendance to the presidency, as the left largely abandoned the working class in favor of woke ideologies and their special interests. At a certain point, the lip service politicians pay to the working class’s needs and concerns was not enough, and they lost their votes. Naturally, it was...

There’s nothing more tiresome than hackneyed references to The Matrix, except for the constant propaganda we’re hosed down with by the Establishment and its media lackeys about how everything is groovy in our totally free, free enterprise paradise of freedom and happiness and more freedom. Some of us have been woke for a while, having realized the undeniable truth that the system is rigged for the benefit of a garbage ruling class, whose sole accomplishment is to perpetuate a paradigm in which they maintain power and prestige by controlling institutions they didn’t create or build. Instead, they are cultural trust...

Like the mighty Gulliver pinned down by the Lilliputians, the Reddit Raiders have had the giant hedge fund boys tied up in knots. The suits were executing a classic short squeeze where they collectively shorted GameStop shares. It’s a time tested strategy where their shorts alone were virtually guaranteed to drive the stock price down. They consistently made hefty profits while the small shareholders lost big. But a funny thing happened to the wolves on the way to this kill. They ran into an army of small day traders, armed with laptops. A few did the research and shared it...

This week, a small contingent of retail stock traders discovered that big hedge funds had taken large short positions on several stocks. In some cases, the shares shorted exceeded the total number of shares issued by the companies. "Shorting" means selling stock you don't own. With the cooperation of market opinion makers, negative assessments can be created and circulated driving the share prices down. The hedge fund that shorted the stock can then close the deal by buying the shares at a lower price and net billions in profits. This time, though, outsiders used the large short position in GameStop...

The rules here are simple: Heads Wall Street wins, tails you lose.For those who haven’t heard, there’s a bit of a brouhaha brewing with the video game retailer GameStop, which is publicly traded. Much of Wall Street soured on the company, believing it to be the next Blockbuster or Radio Shack: a dinosaur from a bygone era that has no hope of succeeding in the increasingly internet-run future. As a result, a major Wall Street hedge fund worth billions decided to make a bet that the company’s already low stock price would just keep going lower. The traditional way to...

In the aftermath of the disgraceful Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the American ruling class has flexed its muscles like never before. Big Tech oligarchs moved in unison to kneecap upstart Parler, a would-be Twitter competitor, and ban former President Donald Trump and scores of other conservatives. Simon & Schuster, one of the nation's most reputable book publishers, canceled a book deal that it had commissioned with the conservative Sen. Josh Hawley. President Joe Biden, in direct defiance of his campaign-season vows to unify the country, oversaw a deeply divisive and ideological first week in office. And just...

Rush Limbaugh on Thursday pointed to GameStop stock as the latest example of Washington elitists coming after ordinary Americans. Shares of GameStop, a video game retailer, have soared in recent weeks, going from $17.08 to $347.51 at Tuesday's close. Brokerage platforms such as Robinhood and TD Ameritrade restricted trading on Wednesday and Thursday following an unexpected surge in trading volume of various stocks. Limbaugh said the move was made to protect hedge fund billionaires, per Fox News. "Folks, it's not just political now. The elites are bent out of shape that a bunch of average, ordinary users have figured out...

Kyrie Irving didn’t fly with the Nets for Friday’s game at Memphis, and his status (along with that of Kevin Durant) is still up in the air for Sunday’s home tilt against the Thunder. A source familiar with the situation told The Post that Irving is fine physically, but was upset by the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington by supporters of President Donald Trump. The All-Star isn’t AWOL, and the team has been aware of why he’s not playing. Irving, in essence, took personal days, according to a source.

When the Constitution formed this nation, we were a country of around 4 million. But in 2020 at least 74 million Americans have had their votes tossed in the trash along with the Constitution. More Americans had their votes discarded, stolen, nullified, corrupted, and obstructed in this election than existed in the entire United States when it fought for its independence from monarchy and tyranny, when it brought into being a “more perfect union”, when it expanded westward, and when brother against brother fought in a civil war to preserve that union. There were more Americans who voted for President...

What began as a self-righteous crusade to supposedly save the Republican Party from Donald Trump has now morphed into an explicit enterprise for personal profit.What began as a self-righteous crusade to supposedly save the Republican Party from Donald Trump has morphed into an explicit enterprise exposing who they were all along: financial opportunists capitalizing on media-fomented Trump Derangement Syndrome for personal profit while masquerading as white knight Republicans.More than any other culprit — the Bulwarks, The Dispatches, the legacy papers promoting ex-GOP columnists as “conservative” — the vile con artists at the Lincoln Project reveal the left-wing campaign purportedly about...

It’s been a hard year but at least we know, beyond all doubt, that our elites despise us and will do anything to expand their power.For as difficult as the past year has been, from politics to the pandemic, it has at least helped to illuminate and clarify certain things about the state of our country.Above all, 2020 has illuminated and clarified the relationship between America’s elites—in government, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, corporate America and the corporate press—and everyone else. In short, our elites believe, contra Thomas Jefferson, that most people were born with saddles on their backs while a favored...